


Heartilation

by thebombardier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Falling Out of Love, M/M, Moving On, Not Beta Read, Overdosing, Post Reichenbach, Unrequited Love?, not so triumphant return, the most unsexy masturbation scene in the history of fanfiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:56:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebombardier/pseuds/thebombardier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death leaves so many loose ends to mend. Maybe, the fabric of life is not as strong as it was before, but once the repairs are done, and the thread is tied off, it leaves little wiggle room for anything new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction: PoolDartmoorFall

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, mostly because I'm too proud to actively look for help. (inquire within)

It starts at the pool, or more precisely, it takes the glint of madness in the eyes of unassuming Jim from IT and John Watson gift wrapped in Semtex to even consider the facts so simply placed before him.

His heart; undeniable proof that even the great Sherlock Holmes is not immune to matters thereof.

Of course it would be John Watson to make him see. Calm, rational, his very antithesis: John Watson.

103 BPM reverberates off the halls of the pool to the steady stride of James Moriarty exiting, stage right. Red laser dots fade to dull yellows and whites as the city passes by the windows of the cab. Adrenaline runs high, nose burns with chlorine stench permeating clothing, and every inch of their bodies is taut as a bow string, drawn and ready. The cab ride home is thankfully quiet, however, the drive goes on forever. Sherlock twitches with pent up energy to the beat of the passing London scenery. How?

All logical paths lead to fire, gun or explosive, and death. Whether his, John’s or Jim’s, or all the above was up to how the situation ultimately played out. How did they manage to pull this one off? Fingers tap unfinished sonatas on bony knees as John worries his lips between his fingers.

When the cab comes to a stop in front of the flat, Sherlock throws all the money in his pocket at the cabbie who looks bewildered at the wad of cash as he picks it up. The door is slammed on his puzzled ‘thank you’. The front door is locked, and the key slips several times before John manages to get it in the keyhole. Twist, tumblers unlock, and he swings the door open with more force than is really necessary. The door bangs loudly against the wall, no doubt waking Mrs. Hudson, but these things happen. John holds the door scanning the street behind him, follows Sherlock closely when he walks through the doorframe, closer than usual. Neither one has said anything; John’s mouth is glued in a hard line. He closes the door carelessly.

The months leading up to this moment are wrought with ever-growing uncertainty. Not in the work; never the work, that is the only thing that remains constant. The people are what change, they are the dependant variable in the grand scheme of things. John enters his life and before the end of the day, completely turns it upside down. He becomes a constant, the rock, the independent variable.

John Watson transforms overnight. He becomes more than a former military man, more than a doctor. He becomes the prophet. He writes his blogs and brings their clients. John brings him jobs, and in that sense, he is the work.

Sherlock blinks back the epiphany with a silent ‘oh’.

Before they can even make it to the stairs, Sherlock turns on his heels, stands chest to chest with John, can feel his breath, steady and most certainly alive. John meets his gaze, holds it with a slight frown and before anything can be said, they simultaneously bridge the gap. Lips crush together messily. Teeth clack. Noses bump. Hands hover hesitantly on the sidelines. John pushes Sherlock’s chest lightly, just enough to stop Sherlock, who takes this moment to appreciate a stray thread of saliva that still connects their mouths.

John hums slightly, assessing the situation. He inhales sharply and leans in, readjusting his head to keep unpleasantries to a minimum. He manages to get his tongue in Sherlock’s mouth, and when all is said and done, it really is quite nice.  

“When exactly did you manage to grab take away?” Sherlock pauses just long enough to mutter against John’s mouth. John pulls away abruptly and stares incredulously at him. Sherlock narrows his eyes and it’s enough to send John into a fit of nervous hysterics. He buries his face in Sherlock’s scarf, laughter muffled. Sherlock hesitates.  

“Jesus Christ,” John gasps as he puts hands on Sherlock’s shoulders to steady himself, he raises his head enough to meet Sherlock’s eyes, “We almost died tonight.”

“I’m aware,” Sherlock still smiles dazedly.

“Saved by the Bee Gees,” John rubs his eyes with the palm of his left hand, “The Bee Gees! Of all things!” his voice is weary, he leans up to kiss the side of Sherlock’s mouth chastely, “Goddamn... Well then, come on upstairs, I’ll put the kettle on.” Hands grasp one another, and John leads the way up the stairs.

It was the zero hour, incident number one. Sherlock never speaks a word of it to anyone, not the Met, not Mrs. Hudson, not even his brother (though he certainly has his own means of finding these things out). It never makes its way to John blog, and is most certainly not a conversational piece when John meets Harry for lunch a week later. It dissipates into the air between them with an unspoken vow. It’s their secret to keep, and it is almost like the events of the night at the pool ended with them in their respective chairs, wondering just how and when they had gotten there over a cup of tea.

The hours pass: two, three, four, five AM, and finds them opting to sit in their chairs, silently cradling ever cooling, untouched cups of tea in pale, shaking hands. When the sun rises, John stands, wincing slightly at shoulder and knees cracking stiffly and announces he is going to try and get to sleep. Sherlock watches as he lumbers up the stairs.

When John is out of sight, Sherlock unfolds himself from the chair, sets the cold cup of tea on the coffee table and wanders up the stairs gingerly. He flops down onto the bed without bothering to even toe his shoes off, vaguely registers John scooting over to give him more room, as the surroundings begin to fade.

He is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

+++++

There are many stolen glances. It becomes routine: a look over the lid of a computer, sideways across the room, over the morning paper, beyond the doorframe. If they notice one another, neither says anything.

John frowns the morning they meet The Woman, and stays that way for most of the months that follow. Brows furrowed, lips pursed, mouth straight. His relationships fall apart before they even begin to take off; a revolving door of women of varying looks and interests that Sherlock soon learns to ignore.

It has been six, seven, eight months since the pool and the hallway incident. John only brings up Irene Adler a handful of times, and never seems fully satisfied with any answer Sherlock has to give. When he delivers the news that she will never again be involved in their lives, his frown deepens when he notices that Sherlock appears mostly indifferent. Reaches new, unprecedented levels when he asks to keep the phone. 

 The night before the Hound enters their lives, Sherlock huffs loudly, dramatically. Boredom levels rise to dangerous levels on nights like these, and the sigh is but a warning that in the near future, Sherlock will boil over. The nicotine withdrawal is but the icing on the cake. John sighs in return and closes the lid of his laptop, elbows resting on the desk, fingers laced in front of his mouth. He looks at where Sherlock has draped himself over the majority of the couch and holds his gaze even. Sherlock looks up, and there they sit, holding each other’s eye for a good while.

John stands up and walks over to the couch. He raises his hand, carefully places it on Sherlock’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze before heading up the stairs to his room.

The flat shrinks dramatically overnight, and come morning time, it’s too small for the two of them. Sherlock has been difficult before, but John sinks into his chair and exhales sharply after Sherlock darts down the stairs, harpoon in hand.

A godsend by the name of Henry Knight saves them from the likely event of a murder charge. They’re on a train less than an hour later, Dartmoor bound. When they arrive, the innkeepers, as many before had done, mistake them for a couple. For the first time, John doesn’t attempt to correct them. Irene Adler’s voice registers in the back of his mind, but he’s out the door helping Sherlock gather evidence before he has time to dwell.   




There’s only one bed, and it’s only a little bigger than his bed back home. It’s the first time since the pool, but they are silent as they unpack the necessities. Sherlock, as a general rule, investigates more than he sleeps, and the bed becomes a non issue in the back of his mind.

Sherlock doesn’t return after their fight. John doesn’t sleep.

When the Hound becomes nothing more than myth, and the cold case explodes with the pressure sensitivity of the mine that took Doctor Frankland, Sherlock flops onto the bed unceremoniously without changing out of his suit. John shifts toward the wall to accommodate the extra body, and then buries his face in the pillow. They lie in silence, adrenaline too high to even begin thinking of sleep.

It’s dark. It’s so very dark it’s absolutely suffocating. Every other sense makes up in compensation: can hear soft breathing, smells sweat and fear dissipating far too slowly, feels hair on arms and legs stands at attention. If it weren’t this particular brand of claustrophobic dark, if they hadn’t set off the gas, if, if, if. There are too many variables to this equation. As it stands, John shifts just enough to bring to attention warmth on clammy skin. Sherlock muses vaguely on the effects of unchecked adrenaline, should conduct a study. This is twice this has happened now.

His heart pounds painfully in his chest. He elbows John in the back.

“Goddamnit, Sherlock,” John jumps, exhales sharply. He was facing away, didn’t see it coming. He’s still afraid too. His body tenses and his arm flail uselessly and settles neatly on the bed in front of Sherlock. Before he can finish his train of thought, Sherlock snakes his way closer to John and wraps his arms around him. John freezes, but his hands find their way to Sherlock’s side.

Finally, John sighs.

“Sherlock?” he is quiet. His hand twitches ever so slightly on Sherlock’s side.

“John.” Sherlock is quieter.

“Right,” John murmurs resignedly. His hand finds its way to Sherlock’s face. Fingers ghost stubble as he leans in, “I was beginning to wond-“

“Shhhh,” John feels the hiss on his neck, “Yes?”

“Of course.”

“Yes.”

Mouths together, Sherlock can smell chlorine again if he thinks hard enough, but this time is completely different from before. There is certain finesse this time around; teeth scrape lips and tongues just right. Sherlock moves his leg, tangles limbs and blankets so close, they’re almost one entity.

John stops, giggles nervously.

“We really need to stop meeting like this,” he murmurs, focusing his attention on trails of kisses from neck to shoulder. 

+++

But of course it ends, as all things inevitably do. It ends with a fall that was planned from the moment the jury declared Moriarty innocent. It was coming, but that knowledge doesn’t dull the sudden chill that freezes him to the core when he sees the look in John’s eye as he grabs desperately for any sign of a pulse.

The chill lingers. From the body bag he tears open in the basement of St. Barts, through the deserts of Karachi to the tundra of Magadan, it stays. It’s on the edge of his mind through every identity he steals, every body he snatches, every lie he tells.  

Three years. He never shudders once until he is safely on the red eye flight to Heathrow. The sun rises over the Atlantic ocean, Irish coast on the horizon. He vows to never leave London again.


	2. Didn't Go So Hot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still unbeta'd. Inquire within.

Everyone has somewhere to be. Lone businessmen, couples, families, they grabs their bags and make a hasty retreat to the exits. People line up for trams, for cabs, for the long line of cars coming and going. People talk on phones, embrace. No cabs will take him. He looks down slightly, expecting blood, but there’s none.

So he walks. And he walks. It begins to rain somewhere near Brentford, but he carries on. When his feet begin to ache, he finally hails a cab. It’s almost noon.

Baker Street is occupied by new tenants. Different curtains, door has since been repainted a deep blue. Speedy’s is gone. Mrs. Hudson too? Difficult to tell from such a cursory glance. He gives the building one last glance and gets back into the cab.

They head west.

He finds a hotel. When he gets to the room, he falls onto the bed and stares at the ceiling.

+++

It’s approximately five seconds from the time John opens the door, to the rush of displaced air hitting Sherlock. The door slams in his face. Any closer and it would have broken his nose easily. He blinks several times, rapid succession and examines the door placidly. It’s a house, current occupants here for at least two years, yard neatly trimmed, save some unfortunately overgrown bushes. The neighborhood is quiet, but beyond the door, he can hear hushed whispers. John is quiet and curt in reply to unheard questions.

He turns as the breeze picks up. The taxi idles loudly at the curb. Timing belt, best estimate is less than a hundred miles before it finally goes. He doesn’t bother to say anything to the cabbie, just rattles off the address of a flat he rented upon his return to London. It’s been less than a week.

“Didn’t go too hot,” the cabbie says casually. It’s not a question, he was watching the entire time, probably flinched when the door slammed closed. He meets Sherlock’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Sherlock rolls his eyes and scoffs with more gusto than is really necessary. The cabbie grimaces and shakes his head. The rest of the ride is silent, save the quiet Chopin Nocturne (B-flat minor, Op. 9, No. 2, how droll) playing softly on the radio, and when they arrive, Sherlock tosses whatever cash he has in his pocket at the cabbie.

“Hey! Where the hell did you g-” the cabbie shouts as the door slams.

Sherlock strides purposefully up the four stairs to the door. The cab lurches forward and drives away and he stands there, hand on the knob.

Ring on finger, mysterious red stain, blood? Too bright, tomato sauce a more likely culprit given the time of day. More than a bit drained, lines tenfold, greying rapidly. Wife and child? How old. Less than two years?

He scoffs as he slams the door open. The apartment is Spartan, a student’s flat, stocked only with the most basic of furniture necessities for quick turnover. All he had to contribute was his own meager assortment of clothing left over from days undercover. This is not home; this is nothing more than the hovels he squatted in for three years.  He plops on the loveseat (Ikea, no amount of steam cleaning will ever fully cleanse it) and stares out the window at dull grey buildings across the road.

He chews his lip contemplatively for a good minute before jumping up and waltzing right back out the door.

+++

The new faces at security prove not to be a hassle, (why should they, he is unarmed) and let him carry on. Sherlock storms up the stairs, bursts through the door and hears a skin crawling shriek. All eyes are suddenly on him. Lestrade, from his messy desk near the door (a demotion?) stands slowly, mouth opened in a manner most unflattering.

“You-“ he gapes, approaches slowly enough, but as soon as he’s within arm’s reach, he grabs Sherlock’s lapels and slams him down on the nearest desk. The familiar sound of the handcuffs latching breaks the silent spell, and suddenly the noise level rises to staggering heights. Lestrade takes advantage of the chaos and drags Sherlock, barely struggling, back to the stairwell.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t have you arrested right now,” he demands as he forces Sherlock to sit on the stairs.

“You’ve already started the process, and I don’t have a ‘good reason’,” Sherlock rolls his eyes. Lestrade’s nostrils flare, watches him warily before pulling out his phone. He dials a number with surprising speed.

“Typical,” Sherlock scowls.

“Shut up,” Lestrade warns, “Here you are,” and with that, he hands the ringing phone off to Sherlock who holds the phone between his ear and shoulder.

“Hello, Greg,”

Sherlock exhales loudly, “Hello, Mycroft,” He says stuffily.

“…I shall be there shortly.”

+++

            It’s the second time in his life that Mycroft has been rendered utterly speechless in his presence, and the situation is only slightly better than before. A change of scenery finds Lestrade (fiddling with keys) and Sherlock (freshly uncuffed) in an empty interrogation room. Mycroft’s hand covers his mouth as he enters the room, but he quickly clears his throat and gives his brother a hard glare. A table stands between them. Mycroft paces slowly. Sherlock watches him.

“You should have come to me,” he says finally, quietly. Stops at the center of his side of the table, arms crossed.

“So you could give me away?” Sherlock sneers. He folds his arms over his chest and averts his gaze to the corner of the room, “I couldn’t have the government sponsoring some vagab-“   




“I could have helped,” Mycroft yells, hands slams on table, voice booms out any chance of his brother finishing his sentence. Nostrils flare, eyes flash dangerously, but he manages to compose himself. He adjusts his jacket and punctuates each word as it leaves his lips, “I could have helped, Sherlock.”

He crosses his arms again and continues to watch his brother; face taut, jaw clenched. Wordlessly, Sherlock pushes out his chair and leaves the room. Lestrade watches him go, Mycroft’s eyes never leave the table where Sherlock was sitting

+++

There is a debit card waiting for him on the mantel when he returns to his apartment. When Sherlock finally moves out of the apartment, months later, it’s coated in a fine layer of dust.


	3. The Facts of Life: After the Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is a much different place. Sometimes it's just so hard to cope.

When Sherlock looks in the mirror, he sees lines, bags, angles, paper thin skin stretched tight over bones. He sees hair cut military short, grey spread like wildfire since the last time he had a chance to examine it. Grimace, and there is three and a half years on the lam, undercover, dismantling the largest criminal organization in modern times, possibly ever. He blinks, eyes dull and red, and wanders to out of the bathroom. Lights off. He makes his way to the bed in the dark.

He sleeps deeply. Time becomes a blur. Seconds, minutes, hours, days in the bed pass with spotty recollection of momentary wakefulness. He only vaguely registers the dying beep of the battery as his phone powers down somewhere in the middle of it all.

Finally, he opens his eyes to a strange, blue world. Dusk, if the angle of light through the window is anything to go by. Sherlock stretches, back arches up from bed, bones and joints pop from misuse. His nose twitches.

“God,” he murmurs when he catches a whiff of himself on the sheets. They are thrown unceremoniously to the floor when he gets out of the bed.

It takes a few minutes to heat up, but the shower is hot and welcome, a luxury he missed more than he thought possible. He slouches, stares at the wall ahead of him, faces the spray, lets the water saturate his hair and run the length of his body in hasty streams. He closes his eyes into the spray and takes his cock in his hand. He exhales. Experimental strokes yield barely discernible reactions. He bites his lip and thinks of the double room in Dartmoor, dark and foreboding. Of John’s body against his, under the safety of sheets and blankets.

It is enough to work with, but only just. The water begins to cool significantly before it gets him anywhere. He sighs as he comes and looks down, watching the drain wash the evidence away. He bathes quickly in the rapidly cooling water.

Matters of necessity trump comfort, which means there are no towels in the flat. No towels, no robes, no violins, nothing of the life he had before the fall. Sherlock leaves a trail of puddles in his wake as he makes his way to the bed and sits, naked and soaking the duvet and sheets. He grabs around on the bed until he finds his phone.

He groans when it refuses to power up. Fingers run over the individual buttons of the keyboard. Sherlock throws the phone in the air, catches it and aims at the wall.

The phone may never again turn on, and the landlord is not going to like that dent in the wall.

He throws himself back onto the mattress and rubs his palms over his eyes. He is saved by the sound of footsteps on the front stoop. He looks around the room, pulls on a pair of pants and answers before the person even knocks.

“Sherl- Give me minute!” Lestrade’s foot stops the door before Sherlock can slam it in his face.

“Not interested!” Sherlock says loudly as he tries to push Lestrade’s foot out of the way.

“I’m not here for your brother,” Lestrade pushes back, “Christ, Sherlock, just let me in.”

Sherlock huffs, swings the door open and flops dramatically on the loveseat. Lestrade adjusts his coat and lets himself in, groaning when he notices Sherlock’s state of undress. He looks around, and when he doesn’t find anywhere to sit, he resigns himself to standing over Sherlock, shifting his weight foot to foot. He doesn’t speak for a long time, never makes eye contact.

“Goddamnit, Sherlock, good to see you haven’t died since our last meeting,” he says quickly shifts gears, “I have no idea how the hell you managed to pull this one off-“

“Who is she?” Sherlock interrupts.

“What?”

“John’s wife.”

“How the- of course you would know,” Lestrade rubs his eye with his thumb, “Name’s Mary. Met at a grief therapy meeting after your waltz off the roof. She’d lost her father, he’d lost you, so they had something to talk about.”

“How long?” Sherlock asks quickly. He leans forward, elbows on knees, fingers steepled in front of his face, eyes focused solely on Lestrade.

“Three year anniversary is coming up in about a month.”

“Child. A boy, I presume?”

“Arthur. Year and a half.”

“Named after her father? God, how boring,” Sherlock’s face is emotionless, “Is there anything else?”

“He was a real wreck you know,” Lestrade shifts his weight, “Didn’t even go to your funeral.”

“I gleaned as much from ‘met her at grief therapy’,” Sherlock rolls his eyes. Lestrade crosses his arms over his chest, and examines a spot on the floor.

“Well, this has been…” Sherlock says slowly, tapping his fingers together “Quite informative.”

“Right,” Lestrade sighs loudly, “Well, it’s… ‘s good to have you back.”

“I trust I’m not allowed back onto any crimes scenes?”

Lestrade sucks his teeth, and shakes his head slowly, “At least not for a little while, I’m afraid.”

Sherlock crosses his legs and arms and blinks neutrally at Lestrade. Lestrade, in turn, jams his hands into his pockets and looks out the window. Watches rain drip down the panes of glass. Sherlock never stops watching the former detective inspector, even when the phone in Lestrade’s pocket vibrates, and he whips it out. He frowns, chews at his lower lip while he reads the message.

“If you don’t leave now, she won’t be so keen on giving you another chance, Greg,” Sherlock drawls. Lestrade blinks, genuinely surprised. He smiles.

“Jesus, I’d forgotten that- look,” Lestrade buttons up his coat and turns up the collar, “It’s really good to see you again, mate. I’ll be in touch if anything changes, yeah?”

The rain has died down and Lestrade closes the door gingerly behind himself.

Sherlock watches him go. He runs his hands through his hair, tugs and leans back. He looks to the coat he picked up in Moscow. Too big, ratty, nothing like the Belstaff he threw away after the fall. He cannot muster up the energy to get his cigarettes out of the pocket.

Sherlock sinks, and sinks, and sinks into the cushions, deeper and deeper in the hope that he may become nothing more than a bit of the furniture. The life of a loveseat; presumably more simple than current circumstance.


	4. Boredom: A Slight Mistep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calgary was preferable to this. Helsinki was preferable. Abu Dhabi, Tegucigalpa, Moscow, and Phom Penh were all much better than this. This existence of nothingness, that comes with a world Sherlock Holmes no longer fits into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not beta-d. School has upped that ante, and I don't have a whole lot of time to be writing anything other than research papers, so updates will be far and few between.

Calgary was preferable to this. Helsinki was preferable. Abu Dhabi, Tegucigalpa, Moscow, and Phom Penh were all much better than this. This existence of nothingness, that comes with a world Sherlock Holmes no longer fits into.

Someone snaps a photo of Sherlock as he’s being forcibly removed from St. Barts. The next day, he is front page news; grainy camera phone image under headlines screaming miraculous return of the Reichenbach Fraud. The day after that, the tone changes and he is hailed a hero, and the article he skims is chock full of praise and apologies, and a story he definitely never told anyone. Meddling Mycroft.

Cases begin to trickle in after that. His site explodes with views and comments, but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s really nothing more than morbid curiosity that brings them. They’re dull. Dull people, with dull problems, solutions easy enough for even the feeblest mind to logically conclude with little more than a fleeting look. But then again, it’s certainly not every day people return from the dead, and inquiring minds want to see a ghost in the flesh.

Sherlock Holmes prowls the streets of London after dark with the whores and the thieves and other relics of his past. The kid doesn’t bat an eye when he eventually finds him.

+++

A train hits him, cold creeping sensation from the injection site spreads, and warming the further it goes. Heart beats once and suddenly, the wind is knocked right out. Ears ring and the world is that much softer. His body is heavy, mind begins to slow. He collapses into the couch.

God, it’s February. The thirty-sixth February, and where exactly has the time gone? Time spent with John: approximately 4.2% of his total lifespan. Just over four percent and it’s so insignificant a number for something so significant. His shifts, curls his legs into his chest. Faces the filthy cushions on the back of the couch; mouths ‘four point two’ like a life saving mantra, as his eyelids grow heavy.

He closes his eyes for just a moment, and the sun wakes him. His mind is groggy, moving through mud, but there’s still the underlying sense of loss edging its way into the periphery.

Sherlock’s body is heavy, so far away, mouth full of cotton. Tolerance just isn’t what it used to be, but that’s what five years of sobriety does. One more injection shouldn’t hurt. With enormous effort, he uncurls himself, knees pop in protest, and feels around the end table until his hand closes around what it needs.

It looks like too much, reads like too much according to tiny numbers and lines, but a nagging in the back of his mind tells him not to dwell on it too much. Worse comes to worst, he rights some cosmic mishap caused by a stroll off the roof of St. Bart’s four years ago.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, he won’t feel cold hands, pawing and pulling him into the unknown.

“Oh God,” hard grind against John’s thigh. Sherlock throws the sheets off them, and effectively off the bed, sits up and undoes his coat and shirt. Discards them, sits on knees, looming over John, who rolls onto his back. Sherlock puts his hands on John’s hips and studies the length of his body as well as he can in the dim light.

He licks his lips and pulls John’s pyjamas down until they are bunched up at his ankles. Leans forward, and mouths John’s cock through the thin cotton of his briefs.

John hisses through his teeth, grabs Sherlock’s hair, and holds tight.

But the memory is murky, blurred and just feels wrong. He blinks slowly. Of course this isn’t Dartmoor, this isn’t even about them. The room is white, lurches uncomfortably, small, and his chest is on fire. Sherlock paws weakly at wires and tubes, but someone grabs his arms and pins them at his sides. A woman looms over his body, turns around and the lights dim.

He bites white knuckles to quell the moan bubbling up from deep in a chest no longer burning. They are naked, save thin layers of sweat. The sheets of John’s bed that cover their bodies are clouds; light and moist. Limbs wrapped up in limbs, bodies writhe. Oh god.

John nips at his jawline, shifts his free arm and suddenly, his hand is wrapped around both of them.

“You had better not-” a voice yells, muffled, but the inn is still full. It’s of no consequence, not when events of the night have come together in such a way.

“Oh, fuck,” mind is blank. John’s hand is calloused and glorious.  

And so it goes, until the sheets are snakes, twisting and constricting the breath from his lungs. Throat fills with cotton. He tries to swallow, tries to inhale. The blockage is momentary. He gasps and suddenly the room is filled with light. John is gone. Nothing.

 Eyes struggle to open, register dim lights and blurs, blinks to clear his vision but it doesn’t work. If he thinks hard enough, he can hear the steady beating of his own heart on a monitor. Arms are heavy, and hands are clumsy as he tries to figure out just where the IV is.

“I would suggest that you go back to sleep.”

“Fuck off, Mycroft,” mouth is dry and sticky, words slur together.

“I’ll pretend those were politer words.” Mycroft is standing over him now, “I would suggest you go to sleep. You are not leaving this hospital tonight, and I do know how bored you get.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this thing for over a year. It's changed quite a bit from the original (it had to, season two came out and threw off some of the original premise) but I've at least gotten the first two or three chapters about where I want them. Hopefully, I will post more later this week. School is quite hectic these days.


End file.
